Noise Floor

We're at the end of our Death Cab For Cutie series this week, discussing their latest album I Built You a Tower just a couple months after its release. We also go through a host of fascinating Ben Gibbard interviews and rank the Death Cab discography.

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NF095

Death Cab For Cutie spent the pandemic lockdown writing exquisite corpse-style and whittled ninety song ideas down into 2022's Asphalt Meadows. It's an album that surprises at every turn, and this week we discuss everything from Ben Gibbard tackling isolation and aging to Troy's least favorite Death Cab song and the acoustic reimagining of the full album.

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NF094

This week we're covering Death Cab For Cutie's Thank You For Today, the band's ode to middle age and Seattle. There's a lot to talk about in this era of Death Cab, from the process of writing with new band members Zac Rae and Dave Depper to the atmospheric production style to the knockout closing track.

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Our Death Cab For Cutie series continues this week with 2015's Kintsugi, as we break down their first time working with an outside producer, guitarist Chris Walla's departure from the band, and role of divorce and Los Angeles in Ben Gibbard's writing.

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NF092

This week we're covering Death Cab For Cutie's Codes and Keys, an experiment in minimal lyricism and making rock music without focusing on guitars, as well as the band's least fondly remembered era.

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NF091

This week we're joined by Broken Left Foot frontman Blake Correll to discuss Narrow Stairs, Death Cab For Cutie's dark and adventurous follow-up to Plans. With two of us fresh from a trip to see the band in Milwaukee, we cover Ben Gibbard's Kerouac-inspired lyrics, Chris Walla's hands-off approach to the production, and much more.

Broken Left Foot on Bandcamp

Blake's work on Northern Transmissions

Like What You Like

Open Windows: The Making of Narrow Stairs

"The Meaning of Life" - Ben Gibbard's Paste essay on writing Narrow Stairs

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NF090

Plans was Death Cab For Cutie's major label debut and remains their most enduring mainstream success. This week, we discuss the production process at the legendary Long View Farm studio, Ben Gibbard's heart-wrenching lyrics about love and death, and the album's impact on our lives to this day.

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NF089

We're back to Death Cab For Cutie this week, digging into their momentous, genre-defining album, Transatlanticism. We discuss the themes of distance and longing, the songs that remain playlist staples to this day, and try not to spoil too much of our upcoming Give Up episode.

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NF088

We're taking a break from Death Cab For Cutie to recap our favorite albums of the first half of 2026 and look forward to the rest of the year.

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Our Death Cab For Cutie series continues this week with The Photo Album. Released in 2001, it serves as the transition point between the early days and the massive success that would follow. We get into the rushed production, the TV show placements, and how we both might have liked this album even more had we heard it in high school.

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